Education

By Dennis Hayashi

Continuing Education Reforms

This and other key reforms must continue: wiring classrooms for the 21st Century; accountability for improving academic performance and testing--while ensuring what students are tested on reflects the material they need to learn; putting more quality teachers in classrooms and keeping the ones we already have; reducing the number of teachers with emergency credentials; supporting Proposition 98, which established minimum funding of public education; and teaching children the virtues of the diversity of culture we enjoy in our state and community.

Students from underprivileged backgrounds need to spend twice as much time studying to catch up and close the gap with other pupils. Accomplishing that will take paying teachers more and offering incentives to work in struggling schools. They can include bonuses, help with housing, ample preparation time, telephones and Internet hookups. Relieving overcrowded conditions and making long-overdue repairs and renovations are also important parts of reducing class size and boosting pupil performance.

One of the least noticed but most important measures on the March 2 statewide ballot is officially titled the Kindergarten-University Public Education Facilities Bond Act of 2004. It is the state school bond proposal that would authorize $12.3 billion to repair out-of-date and rundown classrooms and construct new campuses to alleviate overcrowding and reduce class size. California needs to put up 22,000 new classrooms due to overcrowding and new student enrollment. Approximately 73 percent of the state's classrooms are 25 years old or older. Thousands of classrooms require a multitude of repairs or upgrades, from leaking roofs and broken bathrooms to putting in heating and air conditioning.

We hold the dubious record of having the third most overcrowded classrooms in the nation. It is very difficult for children try to learn when 40 students or more are packed into a classroom. Proposition 55 would come to the aid of communities with overcrowded schools. It would also provide state money to match funds raised through the passage of voter-approved local school bond measures.

Access to Higher Education

We need to keep public higher education in California accessible and affordable. Proposals by the Schwarzenegger administration for major cuts in the budgets of the University of California and California State University systems mean students and parents face higher fees and fewer classes. During the past two years, student fees at UC and CSU have climbed by 40 percent. Governor Schwarzenegger's proposed budget calls for an additional 10 percent increase in undergraduate fees and 40 percent for graduate students.

What's more, UC and CSU historically put one-third of the revenue raised from higher fees back into financial aid programs for deserving students. Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed reducing it to 20 percent.

A study by Harvard economist Susan Dynarski found that every $1,000 increase in college tuition means 4 percent fewer of the nation's 18-to-24 year olds will enroll in higher education.

Community college budget cuts and fee hikes are just as ominous. Fees at community colleges went up by 64 percent in the last two years. The governor wants to boost these fees by another 44 percent. For many community college students, a lot of whom must work while attending classes, even modest fee increases force them to forgo a college education.

Community colleges have traditionally been where many working and lower-income people have begun the path towards a better life through higher education. We need to keep that path to progress open.

California's economic competitiveness relies at least in part on the greatness of our public system of higher education.

I will not support raising fees. Over time we should stabilize increases in tuition through a range of policies that expand revenue from other sources, reduce institutional operating expenses and promote more cost-effective delivery of higher education. We should limit student fee increases to the annual growth of Californians' family income. That would connect the price of higher education to a broad measure of the economic well being of the state and the ability of families to pay. We should also link annual fee increases to the funding of financial aide for students as well as step up state investment in financial assistance based on need.

One big source of support for recent high school graduates or community college students transferring to four-year institutions is the underused Cal Grant program. It can provide students who qualify with as much as $9,700 a year in grant money that doesn't have to be repaid. These Cal Grant funds can be used to attend any private or public college or vocational school in the state.

The Cal Grant program has thus far been spared budget reductions threatening to cut deeply into the UC, CSU and community college systems. I will help ensure this valuable resource for college and college-bound students in our district is continued.

More than $600 million is expected to be available for the academic year that begins this coming fall. Since the Cal Grant effort was expanded three years ago, millions of dollars have gone unspent. There is presently money to fund as many as 220,000 grants of various sums for eligible students. To qualify, recently gradated high school students need to have had a 2.0 grade point average or better. Community college applicants 24 years old or younger with a grade point average of 2.4 or better have to be planning to transfer to a four-year university. The deadline for applying is March 2.

During the 1990s, I participated with White House staff and other senior administration figures in a fundamental evaluation of the effectiveness of various federally supported educational programs. It was part of a report to President Clinton about which programs from the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services should be continued and which should not. Among the ones I examined were those serving students from disadvantaged backgrounds and low-income families; programs encouraging graduate students from disadvantaged upbringings, including Caucasians, to become teachers by helping pay off their student loans; those helping women enter professions from which they were historically excluded or limited; and programs providing children with disabilities public education services meeting their unique needs. In our report to the President, we recommended these and other educational efforts be continued.

I have also taught law classes for undergraduate students at UC Berkeley and a class in public interest law at the New College of the Law in San Francisco, which helps working adults return to school to become attorneys. I believe we must continue pursuing structural and programmatic reform of secondary education and make sure access to higher education remains open to everyone who seeks it.